Category: Random issues

Item #1: A big tree story
Not many trees get as tall as this one. Story: CenturionEucalyptus regnansLink is a flowering evergreen and a hardwood tree.The one pictured is the tallest one alive, although one that had died and fallen was much taller.
It looks healthy, so I will report back every 10 years until it falls.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Item #2: Where not to build a house

Just about everyone has heard of the white cliffs of dover. Some folks have actually seen these bright white cliffs of marine chalk. [ Link ].
Along the same coast, but 40 miles west, is a related exposure of white cliff, but less high. Being between the cliff and the Strait of Dover is hard to pass up.
Rock cliffs do have the unfortunate character of breaking into chunks and falling. A person could get hurt. Not this time
Homeless is better than dead, so that’s the good news.

Item #3: Can you smell chlorine?Say you have an old town with lots of old pipes. How do you find the leaks?
We’ve been associating with bird dogs for a long time. Brother Kenny got one when I was still in high school. Nancy and I have seen all sorts of birddogs in action. Obviously if you need something sniffed out, you need a dog. Here is the story of a Springer Spaniel that helps find water leaks.the nose knows

Well, again, I’d like to keep track of this operation every few years to see how things work out. Can you think of anything that could go wrong? There is the adage: Murphy’s Law – “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong”. {While Murphy is out of town.}

Item #1: Wind and fir trees
QUILCENE, WA, just west of Seattle, had rain and wind. This storm tapped into tropical moisture, bringing as much as 3-7 inches of rain to the Olympic Mountains and North Cascades. Usually trees fall on electric lines and/or houses.Buick lost the battle With a gallery of 12 photos.
One image shows the tree broke and the upper part is near the back end of the car. Maybe the moving car carried the other section forward.
Taller trees are more susceptible to the “lever” action whereby the force of the wind at the top gets carried to the roots. Firs concentrate their foliage on the top of the tree sticking up and out above other trees, so catch the wind and act as even larger levers. They are shallow rooted.
Note the lack of branches in any of the photos. One shows where the roots (or lack of) came out of the ground. This tree appears to have a larger diameter trunk than its nearby mates, so likely did stick up above them – into the wind.

Item #2: To leak and groan
The photo of the church has nothing to do with this story.

Adelaide’s pipes, all 3,209 of them, were sent to England for repair of the leaking and groaning. Each pipe was washed, re-leathered and tuned individually by ear.
I hope I never have to be re-leathered.

Item #3: briefs & rabbits
Nancy was looking at an ad from a local store that had underwear on sale. Did we need any?
Just then a story from Hobart, Tasmania (TAS) was one of the headlines on my computer screen.

Hobart faces Antarctica across 1,700 miles of cold ocean. One has to traverse Storm Bay first, but it is often cool, rainy, and windy in the region.
The main prison in TAS is located near the small community of Risdon Vale. It has a good environment for rabbits but, apparently, not for underwear.
“Only two pairs … this appears inadequate and, as a minimum, standard clothing issue should be at least four pairs …”
Also, there is this: “rabbits appear to be in plague proportions and are present in numbers sufficient to be noticed at all times of the day …”

An easy solution to these problems is shown here:
What’s not to like?

Item #4: And not a moment too soon

a ban of mandatory high heels
The changes will take effect Jan. 1, 2019; in the Province of Alberta.
This seems to be a big issue in the U.K. and Canada but don’t know that it has been in the USA.
When we were at the University of Idaho a new dean was hired. Likely he had never traveled west of Michigan, his then place of employment. During his early days at UI he wanted the folks in Mining, Geology, and Geography to wear dress shoes, instead of western (cowboy) boots.
That did not work well. After this was announced, folks that had not worn western boots began wearing them. A bunch of miscreants, we were.

Item #1: Weather
While we are having freezing temperature at night, the daily high has mostly gotten above 40° F. We do not have snow – unlike lots of other places in this wide land. So far, that’s good. However, mountain snow is desired because it is the region’s storage facility for electrical energy and water for crops.
The only thing in our forecast of interest is an “air stagnation advisory”, meaning bad news for those with breathing problems, and those who invested in wind farms.During Sat through Tuesday, wind power – green line in this chart was near zero. Early evening of the 14th wind at Ellensburg hit 18 mph, than dropped to 3, had another small burst and is again at zilch. In this chart, “Fuel” means gas, sawmill and paper plant materials, and some methane from landfills. This is fairly steady but does go down and up with activities at these facilities. The nuclear plant is southeast of us about 70 miles and has been a steady electricity producer since December 1984.
The good news is the “hydro” power way off the top of the chart.
When the wind picks up – maybe Thanksgiving Day – and the blades begin to turn, the output from the dams will be dialed lower.
This region-wide process is called “balancing” and the chart I’ve used updates every 5 minutes. The Bonneville Power Administration in Portland has this responsibility.

Item #2:Hay
Over the last three days our friendly broker has brought 15.9 tons of baled hay. It is now stacked in our shed, and will feed the horses through all of next summer. We used to bring hay home in a stock trailer and pickup – about 3 tons. When I was a kid in PA, bales weighed about 65 pounds. Now they weigh about 110 pounds. I did help unload this week. As the horse herd grew, getting hay started to seem like real work. We no longer have to make that effort. And that’s good news.

Item #3: Chihuahua vs Chair
From the text:
“She was in the back of the truck and as we just about got to the vet, we hit the gutter and all of a sudden the dog’s head popped up and her eyes were open and signs looked very good at that stage.”

This story is from Australia, so maybe gutter is a slang term meaning something other than running off the road and bouncing around in a ditch. Don’t know.
Anyway, you can have a go at it. Here

Item #4: Twins
There is an animal called a Red Panda, being neither red nor a panda. They do have a ruddy coat color and they do eat bamboo. Close enough.
The zoo in Seattle (Woodland Park) had a female named Hazel. In June along came Sisters Zeya (ZAY-uh) and Ila (EE-la).
Story and video here. Link
Last week visitors had a chance to view them. They have been in a controlled environment.

Item #5: Roy Clark died this week
Roy was 85 and hasn’t been in good health. A few years ago he still performed, surrounded by other great musicians. They had a fun time together and fans seem to love the shows – even knowing they were not seeing him at the top of his game. When that really might have been, I don’t know, but here is a sample.
This is a performance when he was 31, more than a half century ago. Roy Clark

Item #1: Kundabung gets kwalloped
There are 2 short videos at the link below the photo. One with dime-sized hail and the other with somewhat larger hail.New South Wales

Scale is in metric. Blue lines are an inch apart, 1, 2, 3 inches.
It is early ‘spring’ in New South Wales so some crops were damaged.
Reports of injuries to people and animals are lacking. That’s the not so nasty news.

Item #2: And from nearby, Bungwahl

Whatever happened to peanut butter and bread?
Maybe my sister can help me out here, but I don’t remember raising plants or animals at school. For quite sometime we carried lunch from home. Then (when?) there was a cafeteria in rooms just off the basketball court. I have no idea what was served.
We did have a garden at home – about a mile away. I don’t remember walking home for lunch either. But never mind.
I do wonder if the kids at this school study letters and numbers, history, and so on.
So here is the funny thing: I don’t actually remember learning anything at school until about grade 5/6 (same room together).
I do remember helping in the garden and learning to cook.
Your remembrances may be different.

Item #3: Saskatoon Crime Stoppers

The headline included the words “jingle dresses” and being the non-world traveler, I had not a clue. So, I followed the link.

A Facebook page was used. Saskatoon’s page, with 26,000 followers, has about 10,000 more followers than the Toronto Crime Stoppers Facebook page. I investigated further and found I can buy the little jingle cones for about $20 Canadian for 100. At the moment that’s about $15 US dollars.

Jingle jingle This is a Wikipedia article. The origin story is interesting. Involves a sick child.

Item #4: Needed, personal helicopter
My car is blue, so these are not me.
This is the 3rd or 4th time in 2 years that I’ve had delays getting home after being out and about.
In 2017 I went east of Spokane. Just as I got on I-90 to head west, a utility transformer caught fire and high voltage power lines dropped across all lanes of the highway. 1 ½ hour delay.
Earlier this year, very early in the morning I headed to Stephens Pass. Large fires and regional air circulation brought smoke into the mountains. I was on the road with no way of knowing the event I was headed to had been cancelled. 2 hours each way, and a complete waste of time. Consolation prize: I got to see a Mountain Lion cross the road during my return trip.
Awhile ago I again went southeast of Spokane to a trail and while there a grass fire started near I-90 on the Ellensburg side (west) of the Columbia River. For about an hour I got to watch airplanes and helicopters fetch water from the River and head toward the massive smoke plume near Rye Grass Summit. This one took 1.5 hours of extra time getting home.
Regarding the photo above: I was helping to bottle Roussanne at White Heron Cellars. About the time I headed home – normally a 70 minute drive – a guy in a red truck tried to pass traffic. This is an easy maneuver. I’ve done it dozens of times. However, this gent went into the downhill lane and encountered a white Dodge Caravan. Neither of the drivers were injured. {Last year there was an accident on this road but I was able to go around on an orchard access road – before police arrived.}
Thursday, I was just starting up the hill, not even to the 2-lane passing section, when I came to the stopped cars about a mile from the accident site. About an hour later, the 2 wrecked vehicles were brought down the hill. I went on to Quincy – 6 miles – with the road full of vehicles, and side roads too. At Quincy I turned south, so I’ve no idea how far east of Quincy the line of stopped vehicles continued.
Did I mention that at White Heron Cellars, I am a total of 24 miles from home – if I had a helicopter, or one of these *Ultralight_trikes* traveling would be a breeze.

Item #5: Joni Mitchell
Some of you may know of the singer Joni Mitchell, and that her home town was Saskatoon. Okay, me neither. Of great interest is that she is just 2 months older than I am.
She just turned 75, and for this she was given a new name, that being “Kāwāsapizit Wābiski Makawko-ikē” from a childhood friend of the Yellow Quill First Nation.Birthday girl
You might wonder about the meaning of this, and so, given my great linguistic skills, I will translate. It means “Sparkling White Bear Woman.”
I bring this to your attention because I now am in great anticipatory mode, awaiting January 4th and a new name. I know it could be something like “Stinking brown pile of bear crap”, but I’m hoping for better. Thanks.

Three times each year our local paper publishes an agricultural section. The current one wraps-up the growing season, here mostly hay. One came with Monday’s paper. There was only a little damage from rain or smoke, harvest went well, selling price is decent.
We live in exciting times.
It doesn’t take many words to say whether the crop was good, bad, or in between – so 97% of the Cover, all of page 4, 1/3 of page 5, and all of page 6 are pictures of baled hay covered with white/blue tarps. There are no pictures of hay growing, or of the harvest, nor of the trucks carrying hay to the port over in Seattle. Do I ask too much?

Because the paper can’t afford to hire reporters (they recently stopped printing on Fridays), they filch material from other papers in their system. One is about bees. Our paper gets its story from the “they think I should subscribe Seattle Times”.
Instead, go to Item #2

Item #2: Mushrooms & Honeybees A trendy Seattle site for a local story
And, another:amadou and reishi fungi
The Reishi, commonly known as Ling Zhi in Chinese, is a herbal mushroom known to have miraculous health benefits. I have no idea about this for people, but as the links show, research is on-going regarding bees.
.
.

Item #3: Katharina, don’t go north! She did.

This is about a hiker on the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT), Washington State, October 30th.
I’ve worked on the PCT numerous times in the Washington Section.
In 2005 (+ Or – a year) I spent a week a mile north of the last paved highway. We were there a week. Friday was our last work day. We would leave after breakfast in the morning. We should have gone Friday. By morning our water filter system had frozen solid, and breakfast was cancelled. From Rainy Pass to Canada is 66 miles. We were camped at 5,100 feet. Eight miles from Canada the trail tops out at 7,126 feet.
Advice from US Forest Service folks is that if you are not past Rainy Pass by September 1st you will likely need to be rescued.
When a helicopter crew plucked this woman from the side of a mountain, she was still 40 miles south of Rainy Pass, October 30th.Katharina Groene
No wonder she is smiling.
{Rain has not stopped up there for the past 3 days.}

Item #4: horses of different colors

Or, this post needs a horse story.
We were sent a photo of a baby horse – left photo below – with a red circle over the “white horse” pattern. I took the circle off and tried to find a match via a Google image search. That returned the same red-circle image, from a Spanish Facebook post, saying “Genial!, premio doble“, or something akin to Great! Double prize. And that’s all I know about that.
Meanwhile, I found the image on the right. It is here:Da Vinci (aka Vinny)
Vinny is a Brit: a May colt at the Fyling Hall riding school, SE of Robin Hood’s Bay, about 200 miles north of London. Looks as though the colts play rough – he’s missing a few patches of hair.

Item #5: ICUCrawley is part of the Perth metro area. A wide shallow section of the Swan River is near, called Perth Water. Adjacent is Kings Park, about 1,000 acres with 2/3 native bushland. Being part of a modern city, there are also tall buildings.
For a bird of prey, what’s not to like? A tall apartment building with views of prime habitat for its source of food is a great substitute for a cliff. A vacant planter on a seldom used balcony is too enticing to pass up.

Item #1: Apple time – bake time
You should be thinking of baking an Apple Pie. We don’t have any of one of the favorite baking apples – Granny Smith – but your local grocery should have them for about $1.25 / pound.
I’ll let you worry about that, and the recipe. According to legend, a tree grew from the discarded core of a crab apple thrown out of the kitchen window in the farming community of Eastwood, 10 miles or so north of Sydney, Australia. 150th anniversary of the Granny Smith apple

If you are a baker, you will find the next item of interest – and have two things to bake.

Item #2: Will you bake for the holidays?
Across the Delaware River from Philadelphia and south is (1) Woodbury, NJ. Camden (2) is a few miles north, and Haddonfield (3) is east of #2, home of the Campbell Soup Company. Dorcas Bates Reilly is the tie that binds these NJ towns. She was raised in #1, worked in #2, and retired to #3.
Dorcas lived to 92, but sadly died Monday, October 15th.
You can pay tribute to the inventor of green bean casserole with crisp onions on top if you bake one of these wonderful dishes in the next few weeks, as millions of Americans will. Get busy.Here’s the story
There are variations of the dish, here is one with bacon:cheesy bacon GBC

The service for Dorcas will be this Saturday so it is likely too late for you to get to Haddonfield – and there’s the good news.

Item #3: Just 3 imagesAbove two images are from the web. Below is an ad from our regular grocery store. The popcorn price is $8.58 per pound. And just to be totally clear – – all popcorn is gluten-free.
Good Grief.

Mother said “Don’t play with your food.”
Apparently this message did not make it north, because the Canadians have a grand time with pumpkins.
This is both an old and a recent story.

In 2013, there was a 1463 pound pumpkin dropped from a 40 foot crane to raise money for the Eganville, Ontario Food Bank and Farmer’s Market. 125 miles north of Lake Ontario

This year, 200+ miles north of Montana, in Saskatoon, gigantic pumpkins were dropped to raise money for the Firefighters Pediatric Fund. Now they have a car involved.Nice color

Item #2: Science jokes

Item #3: Fast Horses

This was sent to us by a couple of field trial friends. In those old days, we often saw an unaccustomed rider on a poorly trained horse. The outcome was not always pretty or funny.
We all agree: We should have always had a sign like this at the field trials.
Another idea (borrowed from some company’s ad):

We wish for you an exciting time
with memorable experiences, but
a trip to an emergency room
is not one of them.

I’ve used this a few times when we go over the welcome and safety talk on Washington Trails work trips.

Item #4: What took them so long
This is a nice story about the Perth Zoo in Western Australia.

Nancy is from Atlanta and, after we met, she
took me to the Atlanta Zoo – or Zoo Atlanta, as it is called. The Zoo’s web site has a history the indicates how the place went from “Worst to World Class”: here I met Willie B.

They have their history in 4 parts:
1889-1950 – The Early Days
1950-1984 – A Zoo Growing Up and the Arrival of Willie B.
1984-1999 – Turnaround: From Worse to World Class
1999-present – Pandas to Present

This is Perth Zoo’s 120 anniversary. It opened in 1898.
Zoo Atlanta was started in its Grant Park in 1889, just 9 years earlier.

Item #5: A place to practice
Finley Ford in Illawarra

About 10 years ago our not-so-close (400 yards) neighbors agreed to become foster parents for a couple or 3 children. One of them began learning to play drums. After the bus dropped him off about 4 PM, the sound of drums filled the air on the Naneum Fan. There are intervening woods, so we can’t see the house, but the trees don’t stop the sound. Oh well, I like drums, see Buddy Rich

The creek runs from the top to the lower left in the above photo. The red arrow points to the Gabion on the side identified as “near-side” in previous photos. The handle for the grip hoist is extending from the unit down and off the lower edge of the photo.
A thin green line parallels the wire rope running back across the creek to a log. On the right, the green line points to the wire out the back of the unit. Moving the handle causes internal griping of the wire, and it moves through the unit – towards the camera. Not shown is a strap holding the unit to a large tree.
With a movement of the handle end of about 44 inches (¼ circle) the cable is pulled just a couple of inches through the unit. In this case, a log is on the far end of the wire rope, and the log moves toward the unit. This is not a fast process.

Photo #14: The other end
A Logging Choker is wrapped around a log and under tension it tightens on the tree. The wire rope from the far side is attached to the choker. We are good to go. Start cranking.
Occasionally, the end points have to be relocated to achieve a desired direction.
To lift a log, placing rigging in the air is necessary. An extension ladder is used to place “tree huggers” – tough fabric bands.

Photo #15: Getting AirborneTo lift a log, placing rigging in the air is necessary. An extension ladder is used to place “tree huggers” – tough fabric bands.

Photo #16: Watching and calling
There are grip hoists this side and the other. Watchers are along the length of the intended path. They will call to the hoist operators whether to loosen or tighten the tension. On the far side the operator is up the hillside and cannot see what is happening. The message is passed up by a person on that side.

Photo #17: Moving ForwardOn this end, the callers and the operator can see the movement of the tree. The idea here is to keep the log above the sill but giving slack so the operator on the far side can pull the log across the creek.
The site is a popular destination for hikers, being just over 2 miles from the trailhead. It gets sufficient use that vegetation is gone from the flat area.

Photo #18: View from the far sideThere has been an operator change. This is a learning experience for about half the crew of volunteers. The experienced show the inexperienced, and then step aside.
Alan (closest ‘Orange Hat’) directs the entire operation.
Actually, there are another 7 or 8 folks doing other things, unrelated to the moving of the log.

Photo #19: Over & DownTrees grow in the forest and on the hillside where they want, and not always in the location needed. The rigging doesn’t usually bring the log to exactly where it is wanted. Here, a volunteer watches the log come across, then steps into position to nudge it to the desired resting place on the sill.

Photo #20: What else is happening?While the log moving and placing is underway, other things are happening.
Note the red dots. The existing trail is off the top of the photo, but the new one will have to come down, turn behind a tree, and end at the level of the top of the logs. Large rocks are hunted, collected off the hillside, and stockpiled over there. A retaining wall will be built. New trail will be created leading to the bridge.
On this side the trail has to be built up to meet the top of the logs. The red oval highlights rocks collected to build a retaining edge for the material of the trail-tread that will fill the large volume of empty space.
To protect the crossing from high water it is built about 6 feet above the stream bed. The old one is just 18 inches up. The consequence of this height is the need for strong rock walls and lots of fill.

Photo #21: Rocks and LogsThe rock wall is taking shape. Note the rock carrier (of heavy canvas straps) at the feet of the worker with suspenders. Several of the rocks required 6 folks to carry them as much as 100+ feet along the trail to this spot. A guess is the largest weighed over 300 pounds.
A chainsaw is used to trim on the inside of the logs. As material is removed, the logs can be nudged closer, and the space between gets smaller, and the walking surface safer.

Photo #22: RefuelingLunch time. I captured most of them. I think 2 (+me) are missing.

Photo #23: Limbs, logs, brushYou will have to go back to the beginning to recognize that a lot of things have been removed. Lots of rocks have been added. The main structural parts of the 2-log bridge are in place. Many more hours will be spent putting up a railing and building approaches.
The volunteer on the right side is holding a Peavey; named after Joseph.Cant Hook or Peavey?

Photo #24: Can the bridge carry a hiker or two?Belinda (photographer) Cron took photos on about 6 cameras. The rest of us, all 2,500 pounds, show trust of our work.

Hope I got most of this right. There’s much missing, too.
Thanks all.
John

Here is a photo-rich and text-deficient report of a project of Washington Trails Association (with Spokane County Parks support) in far eastern Washington. This site is about 1/3 of a mile from the WA/ID boundary line.
Many of the photos were taken by volunteer Belinda Cron, with some by John Hultquist. Sorry if I miss others, but thanks Belinda.
The project was directed by Alan Carter Mortimer, WTA Seattle. Spokane area crew leaders were Holly Weiler and Jane Baker.

Photo #1: Existing CrossingThe trail comes downhill on the far side – shown by orange dots – and crosses to the near side on a well aged bridge. The orange arrow points to a fallen tree, used as a support. Being late September, after a dry summer, the stream is low – just a few inches deep. Stream bed is just 18 inches below the log.

Photo #2: Concept sketchThe concept is to replace the old bridge (left) with a 2-log flat walking surface, with a handrail on the up-stream side. The new structure will be about 6 feet above the stream bed. The design will accommodate those riding bicycles.

Photo #3: Measure
The supports for the two ends are being located, then digging can begin. There are tree branches and downed material still in the work area.

Photo #4: Platform started, rocks gatheredLooks like lunch time. Note the pile of rocks. Gatherers are taking a break in the background. The four folks in the foreground are well on the way to having the near-side platform dug.

Photo #5: Gabion constructedOrange dots show the location of the trail. Note the right-most dot is at the place where someone in a blue shirt is hiking.
The center of this image shows a wire basket-like structure filled with rocks. This is a Gabion; LINK.

Photo #6: Near side GabionOn the near side, the Gabion is ready for filling. Rocks need to be larger than the holes. The edges are held together with a metal spiral, much like that used on some note books.

Photo #7: Sill placementThe gabion is a foundation but not the best thing to connect the logs to. Wood sills do this job. These could have been formed from trees. The County Parks folks chose cut-in-a-mill sills.
Under the rocks a metal bar/plate anchors 2 long steel rods. These are threaded on the top end. Note the orange oval on the right, and the second rod top just to the left of the yellow level.

Photo #8: The logsTwo trees were cut on the slope in the distance. They were brought off the hill and the bark removed. In spring, inner bark (phloem) is soft and wet. This can be peeled easily, but does vary. In fall, the bark holds more tightly and the thick outer material requires more work to get it off. Thick, old, bark from close to the ground is no fun at all.
Bark holds water and becomes a habitat for critters that damage wood. That’s why we take it off. I like to use a sharp axe on the tougher parts. “Draw knives” can be used, but are better on the thinner bark.

Photo #9: One log peeled, another to go.Over several hours there were crew changes, as we went off to do some other things.

Photo #10: Topping the logThe three green lines indicate cuts across the top of the log. Deciding what the top is, and marking how deep the cuts will be, is time consuming, but not physically demanding.
The red oval shows chunks that have been knocked off the log. There is much of this material. It gets cleaned up and dispersed off in the forest.

Photo #11: After the saw makes parallel cutsGetting the top off requires work. There are several techniques.
The young lady on top of the log is using an adze (adz) LINK to adze This very ancient tool is in the hands of a soon-to-be highly skilled medical doctor. How cool is that!
We showed her how and she got busy. I used an ax. Two others used 2″ wide chisels and hammers. After a time, it got crowded with safety becoming and issue. I left this task and worked elsewhere.

Photo #12: Laying out equipmentWe have just retrieved tools from a cache up the slope. The folks lined up pass a tool down to the next, and the next; a human chain or brigade. Important equipment in the foreground are grip hoists and wire rope (cable).